Dressed in a frilly white Chloe blouse, black Yohji Yamamoto  trousers, an over-sized black blazer that set off her chic white bob and a fabulous lavender overcoat, this vintage hipster was just as inspiring in person as she was when I interviewed her on the phone for my blog. The 72-year-old writer talked about how to view ageing positively and creatively… and realistically.  That sometimes it’s better to let go, not have an agenda, strive less, do what you love more. In Lyn’s case, that’s writing essays on Substack or for her local paper, the Peekskill Herald, being with her longtime ponytailed partner Calvin, daughter and grandchildren and being in nature. She now lives in the Hudson Valley and loves to tend to her wild garden, cycle on car-free converted railroad tracks and go antiquing for her arts and crafts home.

But this wasn’t always the case. During her sixties, Lyn gave up her job as a social worker and professor in New York to become a full-time media influencer known as the Accidental Icon with nearly a million followers. The uber-stylish Lyn rejected age as a variable to be considered in how you dress.

She got noticed, hired, and her face was splashed across billboards and buses around the world. Both Lyn and the late Joan Didion modeled sunglasses, the former for Valentino, the latter Celine. Lyn traveled the world. It was a wild ride.

But in the end Lyn felt she’d lost her way, promoting brands she felt no connection to. So, she gave it all up, and wrote a terrific memoir about her experience.

Here’s my edited Q&A with Lyn:

In your fabulous book, which is so honest, intelligent and relatable, you say that your 60’s was a tough decade. Can you briefly explain why the 60s are harder than previous decades?

Well, I think we have a lot of societal expectations that happen to you during your 60s. You have to sign up for Medicare and 65 is a traditional retirement age. I think for me, the challenge of my 60s was, how am I going to respond to all of these things? Which of them really is sort of an old idea that is no longer relevant. I think this idea that you have to retire away from the world and not work anymore, is a very outdated. Many people are finding very vibrant second careers during their 60s. I had an experience that was such an adventure that I did not have in any of my earlier years.

 I think 60 for me is also when my body really began to change pretty dramatically. I wrote about that recently in an essay called Stranger in the Mirror. All of a sudden one day you look in the mirror and you say, who is that woman? And she’s sort of you, but unrecognizable to you. I think for me, that was a big challenge. How am I going to deal with these changes in my body.

And then I remembered that my body has always changed as a woman. You know, when you’re a child to an adolescent, you’re always losing or gaining weight when you become pregnant, when you have menopause, you know, you’re always having to figure out that question. How do I dress a changing body? So again, the more that I think about age and being older as something that I have done before, that I have, in fact, even more knowledge, skills, and experiences to respond to it, the easier It makes it for me to be more positive about it.

2) When you were the Accidental Icon media influencer you lived a life others can only dream of- travelled the world first class, modeled for Valentino and Dior, appeared in Vogue, and then you pulled back from that heady and ultimately unfulfilling experience. I ask you now, who do you really want to be visible to and why?

I think we have these two, opposite representations of ageing in the media. On one hand, we have this decline narrative where. You’re going to have dementia, you’re going to be disabled, you’re going to have chronic illnesses, you’re going to be a care burden you’re ruining the generations that are coming after you because you’re taking up all their money etc.

And then on the other hand now, we have this new version of ageing. I’ve been watching it emerge. Which is you’re kind of ageless. You’re highly resourced, you’re perfectly fit, you’re running marathons at 90, you’re doing whatever you want to do, and it’s as if you’re still young. And I think what’s dangerous about that is that the vast majority of people ageing are in the middle of those two extremes. One extreme is total dependence. The other is complete independence.

But most of us are in the middle,  probably 90 percent of us are in the middle, and I think what’s dangerous about this notion that we don’t need anything, or that everything has to be about curing our diseases, or trying to intervene in providing medical care, is that policymakers and innovators are either going to think we don’t need anything, or that all the innovation should be about our physical body. And that means that the needs of us in the middle are not going to be getting met in creative ways.

What I would like to see happen is that we’re really showing more of those people in the middle. What I’m finding is that you can be extraordinarily creative and have a very rich life without having to have the perfect body or the perfect bank account. I would really like to be visible to those people in the middle. Maybe that’s part of wearing the denim and having an ordinary life (now), I want all of those women to be seen. So that’s who I want to be visible to.

I’ve done this little experiment with younger women who I know, and who have been saying, Oh, I liked your book. I say, ‘Well, what are you doing now to prepare yourself to be old?  I want you to do me a favour and create mood boards for everything in your life. Make a mood board for who you want to be as an older woman.”

We’re never invited to fantasize about our older self. I think if I had been able to do that, like during those times in my life where I was really pressured, and I didn’t have time for me where I kind of lost myself, like in the midst of raising kids and making my career. If I had known that I was going to publish a book when I was 70, I could have comforted myself. I could have said: All right, take a breath. You’re in this now. You put your little dream up on the shelf, but it’s going to come down and it’s going to come out and you’re going to have it. And so, I’m encouraging all young women to start making mood boards of who they wish to be as an older woman in their life.

 like dreams deferred?

Right. Yes.

3) Imagine that your beloved new/old house is on fire. It’s only a pretend fire. Don’t worry. And you can grab three pieces of clothing. Which three would you grab and why?

I have this very beautiful, long, to the floor silk. Yohji Yamamoto coat. I would take that. I would take my overalls, which I am obsessed with at the moment, and I would take this piece that was especially designed for me by I’m not remembering her name, but it’s a beautiful silver brocade jacket. I would probably take those three.

Is the Yamamoto coat black?

Of course

You can read the rest of my edited written interview here on 26, or listen to the whole interview here on my new podcast Elena Meets the Author, where I get to have real conversations with the people I admire. I hope you enjoy it.

March, 2024

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You’re going to Milan? Then you must visit Stephan Janson’s studio. He’s a fantastic designer. His clothes would be perfect on you.

So like the teacher’s pet that I am, I went and was totally charmed by  Janson. Not only is he really funny and warm, but his clothes, which he admits have ‘zero hanger appeal’,  are very wearable. If you’re wondering why you have never heard of Janson, he shuns the spotlight big-time.

But all of Milan’s fashion cognoscenti are loyal clients. And he’s worked for a slew of top names like Saint Laurent, Kenzo, Diane von Furstenburg and Pucci. Here’s a blog I wrote about my new favourite person in The Women’s Room Blog.

Prepare thyself, I don’t look like the model above, but I do like this simple, long dress I bought.

Nancy loves the dress too although she did offer some styling tips,

When you wear a statement necklace, you don’t need statement earrings. And lose the watch.

She’s ruthless, but that’s another blog. For now read the one I wrote about Janson in The Women’s Room Blog. And go visit him next time you’re in Milan!

July, 2017

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Who doesn’t love a touch of glamour, plenty of backstage access and visuals, plus some intriguing background from Harper’s Editor Justine Picardie?

Shot over six months, Waldman captures not just the breathtaking clothes, models and star power behind the $12 billion dollar brand, but the personalities that make it all possible.

Part One of the documentary focuses on the fashion house’s colourful past when Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’ reclaimed Paris as the fashion capital after WWII.

The visionary designer died unexpectantly at 52, just ten years after establishing the brand, leaving his 21 year old genius protegé Yves Saint Laurent to take the helm. Picardie is full of insights about Saint Laurent, as well as subsequent creative directors – including enfant terrible John Galliano –

Each left  their personal mark on the fashion house over the next several decades.

Part Two looks at Dior today,  following Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri as she rushes to prepare for her debut show at the Rodin Museum with only a few week’s notice.

Unlike her intense Belgian predecessor, the Italian Chiuri seems to take the pressure in stride. With cropped dyed blonde hair, baggy jeans nipped at the waist with a big belt, sneakers and an infectious laugh, Chiuri is a joy to behold, a woman at ease in her job.

I like a fairy tale, I love a fairy tale, laughs Dior’s first-ever female creative director.

Chiuri jokes and smiles a lot on camera, especially  with her 20-year old daughter and muse Rachele.

Dior’s head seamstress is equally charming. Asked whether she’d ever like to wear one of the couture dresses she spends hours making, she replies,

No, they are for princesses. I am of  ‘le terroir’ (the earth)

The documentary captures every level and occupation that make the brand what it is from the fourth generation family member who heads Dior Fragrance’s jasmine-picking operation in Grasse, France to the Danish model who reads One Hundred Years of Solitude between fittings to the boss, not Springsteen but Bernard Arnault – France’s richest man who controls Dior through his stake in LVMH.

Perhaps most compelling is Waldman’s footage of the real boss – Anna Wintour, who Waldman was told he could not film.

Undeterred, the director learned surreptitiously  that Wintour was visiting Dior for a private viewing. Waldman and his camera man hid in the atelier above the showroom. Waldman held the camera man’s hips steady as the latter dangled from the rafters above the showroom grasping his heavy equipment trying clandestinely to film the unsuspecting Wintour. He catches her without her signature dark glasses, smiling and perhaps most coup-worthy, taking two chocolates.

This is my lunch, Wintour apparently told an assistant.

Get it on film first, ask for permission later – Waldman’s winning strategy.

February, 2017

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The new Curzon Bloomsbury is perfect date-night material. With its gold bar, sleek lounges, minimalist look, “The Canyon” curving corridor, documentary bar, your date will be impressed. Trust me. And don’t miss the gleaming white loos with their seductive pink lit cubicles.

A short stroll away is The School of Life on Marchmont Street with its life-enhancing lectures.

Better yet are its one-liners. Buy a box for that witty someone. I have a friend’s birthday this week (no, not the Queen of England, just the Queen of Chelsea), and think this box of aphorisms will really strike a chord.

Yes Melanie, I like having that special place in your heart.

Then, there’s the Gavin Turk & Project Beard. Tomorrow sees the opening of The Other Art Fair on Southampton Row where oddball selfie king and celebrated YBA artist Turk poses as Rodin, Morris, Cezanne, Matisse, Man Ray and Dali. Talk about a man with a split personality.

An edition of 250 posters of the selfie master will be exclusively available for £50 each at

Other must Bloomsbury-sees are charming Lamb’s Conduit and neighbouring Rugby Streets.

I love this playground pavilion across the road.

Shopping opportunities abound. I didn’t walk into Maggie Owen’s fun faux accessories shop with these ear rings. But I did leave with them. (Could double as nifty Christmas tree ornaments)

I was tempted some more by these Murano glass statement pieces but held back.

Next door is equally tempting…

Or next door again at…

 Can’t have too many aprons…

Craft lovers take note: Its Open Studio weekend May 8-10. Cockpit Arts (just around the corner) will be showcasing lots of textiles, jewellery, ceramics  from 170 talented makers as part of London Craft Week.

April, 2015

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And his treasure trove of a kitchen…

Adler is  terrific, a really funny and entertaining man, with so many stories about his colourful life that I hated to leave. He counts wildlife explorer David Attenborough , 97 year-old American fashion doyenne Iris Apfel and the late Alistair McAlpine as friends.

Adler started out as a musician and formed Ireland’s first R&B band, ‘Bluesville’ in the sixties. Modest Adler never mentioned that he’s the son of Larry Adler, widely acknowledged as one of the world’s top harmonica players. Adler’s love for tribal art started when he was on tour with Bluesville  and discovered American Indian craft. Since then he has gone global, collecting stunning pieces from India, Thailand, Indonesia, Bali, Afghanistan, Nepal, Africa and South America. He travels half the year scouring the planet for treasures. Don’t miss his annual Christmas party.

Or failing that,  drop in to his beautifully cluttered home Monday to Friday, 10am-6pm. However, I strongly recommend booking an appointment to ensure that you get to meet the talented man himself. Prices range from £15 to about £4,000. I loved this sliced shell neck piece from Bali so much that I bought it. Don’t know how I could have lived without it.

Adler’s philosophy of design is keep it simple, ‘let the materials breathe.’ He has worked with several of the truly great designers, such as Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Issey Miyake, Mathew Williamson and countless others. Tory Burch loved this emerald green beetle-back necklace from northern Thailand.

Victoria’s Secret’s first-ever London fashion show takes place on December 2nd with Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Ed Sheeran. Pebble is providing headdresses, bangles and earrings. Maggie Smith and Judi Dench are wearing some Pebble’s pieces for the 2015 release of “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’. His gems have played a supporting role in ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘Harry Potter’, and ‘Star Wars’ to name a few.

I won’t be blogging for the next few week as I have to focus on work for my Masters, but I hope to be back with a bang after Christmas with a blog from (please) sunny Thailand. Have a great December.

November, 2014

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